The
Old Coot isn’t himself.
By
Merlin Lessler
I
stopped in at my friend Nick’s house to mooch his copy of the Sunday NY Times
Magazine the other day, so I could make another futile attempt to complete the
crossword puzzle. He answered the door and said, “How’s Merlin?” Then laughed.
“He’s good,” I responded, warming to the idea of speaking in the third person
about this old guy, who’s aging body I’m forced to get around in. The deficiencies
are easier to take when I talk about “Merlin” as though he’s just some guy I
hang out with and not me.
“Yea
Nick, he’s OK; he’s having a problem with his right leg at the moment. He and
his doctors are in the process of unraveling the mystery but I think he’s
milking the issue – asking people to get up and get him things across the room,
avoiding household chores yet finding a way to play golf, take bike rides, walk
up Davis hill, go to coffee every morning, swim at the high school pool and other
activities that miraculously don’t appear encumbered by his issue.
You
can be more critical of yourself, more objective when you step into a
third-person narrative and say things like, “Who does he think he is to write
his lame opinions on every subject imaginable, with a lot of focus on the aging
process, like he’s the first person to confront the situation.” [We all know in
an abstract way that one day we will get old, but still, it’s a surprise when
it really happens. Mostly, it’s so gradual we don’t notice, then something
comes along to slap us upside the head, shattering the denial process.]
I’ve
written about many of these head slaps - the day my 11-year-old (at the time) granddaughter,
Oriah, and her nine year-old brother, Atlas and I threw a football around in a
game of catch and they had to move closer to me because I couldn’t throw the
ball as far as they could – and then their older brother, Wylie, could no
longer accept any footwear hand-me-downs from me because his foot was bigger
than mine – and the horseback ride I went on in Zion National Park that left me
lame and limping - and how I moved up to the senior tees on the golf course,
then the ladies tees and now sometimes I
just tee up in the middle of the fairway -and then a few weeks ago when I
announced transitioning to a girl’s bike.
So,
back to the third person frame of mind, The Old Coot is adjusting and just wants
to report back to you youngsters in your 40’s,50’s and 60’s, that old age is inevitable;
you will face it soon enough, sooner than you think, but embrace it. And, try
not to complain about it as much as I do. I mean, the Old Coot does. Use the
third person and nobody will know that you’re talking about yourself. The guy
who wrote this did.
Complaints?
Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
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